Darkest Spots On A Bouncy Pitch

Devious bookies still work to stain cricket. Against them are a feeble anti-corruption body and no laws.

- Qaiser Mohammad Ali

 IRRESPECTIVE of the tightest of preventive apparatuses in place, defiant bookies keep surprising all now and then. A few days ago, former Pakistan wicket-keeper Zulqarnain Haider posted on his Facebook wall 22 photographs of alleged ‘bookies’ posing with several present and former Pakistani players.

Haider, whom the ‘bookies’ had app­roached earlier, alleges that they wanted him to assist them in fixing during a six-team low-profile competition, Greece Friendship Tournament, in Dubai recently. He was there to play in the competition in which teams from India, Singapore, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Greece and the United Arab Emirates competed. But, instead of falling for the lucre and keeping quiet, Haider says he, unlike the previous occasion, immediately reported it and the ‘threat’ to his life to the anti-corruption units (ACUs) of both the Pakistan Cricket Board and the International Cricket Council (ICC).

It turns out that two persons who are seen together flashing ‘V’ signs in one of the photos Haider has posted are Indians (see photo). They are Wazir Khan and Dinesh Talwar, alias Monu, and were among the 14 persons arrested on July 19 during the unauthorised Rajputana Premier League, staged at the KL Saini Stadium in Jaipur. The crime branch of Rajasthan police had arrested them while acting on specific intelligence gathered and provided by the BCCI anti-corruption unit.